Micro Book Reviews
If completing this month’s Sealey challenge has left you wanting even more poetry to enjoy, check out these recently reviewed titles from New York Review Book’s Poets Series. Members of our production team share their insight on work from Marina Tsvetaeva, Farnoosh Fathi, and more. Many thanks to NYRB/POETS for providing our team with ARCs.
Granny Clouds by Farnoosh Fathi
NYRB, 2025
112 pages
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Reviewed by A. Dean
Granny Clouds, Farnoosh Fathi’s second collection of poetry, is chock-full of cheeky prose and mischievous, winking humor. The work raucously refuses formal conventions and instead luxuriates between radical sonic collisions and surreal visual narratives. Granny Clouds’ cartoon world expands what we see, creating a devotional of the quotidian as one “Lunchtime Prayer” becomes an enigmatic vision of unlikely characters gathered at a table, including one sinking snail “grand in pus and rime” and equal in size to “one tea wheel.” The lunchtime scene is brash yet ethereal as the speaker of the poem declares “the tablecloth is of water” and an unknowable bride “slip ‘n slides on her back to us–then on her head (a ballpoint pen), quicksand in her hair.”
There is also a literary spectre, a semi-esoteric feeling slipping between each poem, that informs the collection thematically. Some references assert themselves loudly, as seen in the poem entitled “Rotpeter’s Report” after Kafka’s 1917 short story “A Report to the Academy” where an ape named Rotpeter uptakes human mannerisms to fool his captors and escape to freedom. Other references come in between the lines of the poems themselves, such as Paul Celan’s infamous turn of phrase “Ich bin du, wenn ich ich bin.” italicized and inconspicuously shelved between lines of “Suitor’s Head,” one of the earliest poems in Fathi’s collection. The poem speaks of desire in the absurd as “a sick man in the pew juices his own hand over the alms – / what he drops here / are spanish moss streamers discarded once by a sensual / poet / and a nipple made entirely of cliffhangers.” Celan’s “Ich bin du, wenn ich ich bin” was loosely translated by Robert Lowell as “I am you when I am I” or potentially as “I am you when I I am.” This phrase comes from Celan’s 1948 poem, “Lob der Ferne” or “Praise of Distance”– a surreal love poem that explores desire, connection, and alienation. The reference is small, yet powerful in Fathi’s “Suitor’s Head” that ruminates and rages over the beauty and terror of intimacy.
Granny Clouds as a collection is prefaced by the parable of “Our Lady’s Tumbler,” the story of a humble court jester who becomes a monk. Embarrassed that he is unable to speak Latin, he delivers his devotion through the talent he has – tumbling, juggling, and dancing. His sincere, heartfelt actions are more meaningful than formal contributions. Fathi’s joyous writing embodies the tumbler’s parable, as her poems celebrate life through linguistic innovation and play. There is also a clear influence from Gertrude Stein’s avante-garde lyricism, which focuses on sound and textures to convey meaning, eschewing narrative and conventional forms. For example, Fathi’s poem “Eau d’Lol” combines a mix of French phrasing paired against modern text lingo in the title. This could loosely translate into “water of lol” or “waters of laughter”. Additionally, at a sonic level, “Eau d’Lol,” sounded aloud, reads as “ode to Lol.” The poem itself leans into this silliness, acting as a humorous ode, as “The bald in a beret offers up her nest – / To burp and harp and attribute so little to myself! / Riding like a joke / around which pages are flapping wildly – / to the highest point of my interest – to the ball of the bald.” The conventions of the avante-garde continue to glow boldly in “Luxe Chariot w/Bidet (Meals on Wheels),” as seen in the excerpt below:
The grand meal slides off the sob. A tiny fork silvers in the
river,
in vain, the meal comes into relief on a bed
salted green.
It is birds from our long, nail-curling youth.
Now each wave curtsies, the bather has anal
and a suit of medieval holes for the dolphin’s spurs.
So, it is a match for my good hand, these cloud-moves
twining my own
fork, all this set down on my epaulets, creme-
filled, the quivering silicon balances of lyricism,
transferred one word to the next, this weight agreed upon
the lover
and the beloved both in me, agreeing for the world that
music is,
that a child has punctured my letter – that I bring the
harmed,
deranged and foreign things close, and closer.
Fathi’s lyrical prowess creates a tumbling effect within the act of reading itself. As the images coalesce into yet another unimaginable scene, the reader is left in the position of fabulating for themselves, as if Gogol’s Nose was walking straight towards them! With the visual cues under question, the reader must lean into the sonic pleasures and disruptions to feel their way through this poem. We sit, at another meal, but this time by the water as “The grand meal slides off the sob. A tiny fork silvers in the / river, / in vain.” The alliteration of these opening lines slide, sob, and silver against this riverside imagining. We fall into the next line as “each wave curtsies,” but then are rudely awakened from the scene by a “bather [who] has anal / and a suit of medievel holes for the dolhin’s spurs.” The scene transforms from legible, to intangible. However, the intensity of the lyricism and visual imagery are visceral and hold the reader to the page. The language of the poem invites the reader into the play and pleasure of its meaning-making. Fathi refuses to be beholden to traditional or linear conventions of poetry or language. Granny Clouds employs poetry as a rebellious and intentional act of creative expression through play, thus the meaning-making is collaboratively wrought between the text and its reader instead of being dictated solely by the poet.
These are the major goals of the first two parts of this collection, with the last act as a concentration of the writing process itself in “Anyone’s Dontanelle.” This last poem is a spiraling meditation of the craft in praxis as Fathi brings together the numerous iterations of the poem “Fontanelle” from earlier in the book. Not only do we see the shapeshifting poem evolve, but there are interjections from the poet herself in this meta practice. Again, Fathi boldly throws back the veil, allowing the reader to peek inside the life of the poem. This collection is both an escape and a challenge, a puzzle and a prize for anyone interested in journeying further into the surreal than they thought possible.
Three by Marina Tsvetaeva
Translated by Andrew Davis
NYRB, 2024
96 pages
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Reviewed by Dakota Goodman
Marina Tsvetaeva is widely recognized as a prominent figure of twentieth century Russian literature. Living in Russia in the early twentieth century brought extreme hardships and tragedy to Tsvetaeva’s life. However, these tragedies gave inspiration to Tsvetaeva and led her to write many poems that move the reader with rhymes and unique structure. Following the death of her youngest daughter, her husband’s arrest and subsequent execution alongside their eldest daughter by the Soviet Union, Tsvetaeva brought forth some of her most recognizable works. The book Three (2024) , is a collection of three poems by Tsvetaeva written from 1922-1924, deftly translated from the Russian by Andrew Davis. Davis worked diligently to maintain her clever word choices in the constraints of English.
The collection starts with Tsvetaeva’s poem, “Backstreets,” which is a twisted retelling of the Russian epic tale of Dobrynya and Marinka. This tale follows Marinka, a witch who curses the young hero Dobrynya and transforms him into an auroch, an extinct ancestor to modern day cattle. Marinka is forced to marry Dobrynya in order to break his curse and is ultimately killed by him in revenge. This sweeping tale of magic and betrayal sits at the heart of Tsvetaeva’s poem. Utilizing dreamy descriptions and almost nonsensical lines, Tsvetaeva weaves an enchanting poem that catches the reader’s attention:
How tightly, coil on coil,
These scarves are wrapped!
She walks the streets with apples
And with rubies, with pawns and rooks.
(From my burning lips
A fevered madness comes!
From my burning lips —
The veins inside me thrum!)
With pawns and rooks, with rubies,
My mouth so sweet
It tastes just like
A mother’s teat.
This excerpt draws similar comparisons to Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem, “Goblin Market.” Rossetti’s poem features a pair of sisters who are enticed by goblins with rich vivid fruit. This is similar to how both poems use fruit and glittering descriptions to craft otherworldly prose and imagery. It is also important to note that in Russia, apples are seen as symbols of fertility, health and love and can be inferred as Marinka’s seduction of Dobrynya. This is also supported by the pawns and rooks that the unnamed woman is carrying. She is playing him in an unknown game of chess. Tsvetaeva’s writing embraces the reader and smothers them with the magic found in the epic tale. This poem uses an intoxicating rhyme scheme that lends a musicality to the writing, as if Tsvetaeva is Marinka herself and casting a spell on the reader.
During Tsvetaeva’s separation from her husband, she entertained multiple affairs that fueled her writing. The last two poems of the book are inspired by her relationship with Konstantin Rodzevich, one of her most prominent romantic partners. These poems, “Poem of the Mountain” and “Poem of the End” are widely considered to be some of her best works. “Poem of the End” addresses the end of many things, relationships, love, death, and comfort of home:
In a corrupt sky, rusted like tin,
A finger of a stake.
It rose at our appointed place
Like fate.
— “Quarter to? Correct?”
—Death doesn’t linger
Exaggerated, too tender,
The lift of his hat.
Challenge— in each eyelash.
Mouth pursued.
Extravagant, too low
The sweep of his bow.
— “Quarter to? Precisely?”
Voice lied.
Heart fell: what’s with him?
Brain: a sign!
…
This soundless kiss:
Lip paralysis.
Just so— to the hand of the princess;
To the dead— like this
Tsvetaeva immediately demands attention with a description of Death waiting to take someone’s life. This poem is exceptionally vicious as it goes on with accusations and stinging rhymes. This excerpt also includes examples of Tsvetaeva’s unconventional punctuation. One of Tsvetaeva’s recognizable features are the dashes that divide the narrator’s thoughts and actions as well as mark the start of a dialogue line. Davis notes this unconventional use of dashes makes it difficult to understand whether lines are dialogue or inner thoughts. This complexity leaves it open for the reader’s interpretation however it becomes one of Tsvetaeva’s most recognizable stylizations.
Overall, Three by Marina Tsevetaeva is a fascinating collection that features poems that capture dark atmospheres and rich storytelling. This book is perfect for readers who want whimsical poems that are unusual in form and style.
Trilce by Cesar Vallejo
Translated by William Rowe & Helen Dimos
NYRB, 2025
344 pages
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Reviewed by Dharma Leon
This polyphonic edition of Cesar Vallejo’s Trilce is constructed by translators Helen Dimos and William Rowe. As they put it in the Afterword to Trilce, “the glosses… offer thoughts on each poem malleable enough to be able to accompany readers along the geographies of the poems themselves.” Rowe and Dimos beautifully thread the line between incessant definition and allowing the poem to be. They provide readers with just enough information to make the collection apprehensible while honoring its complex exploration of aesthetics, language identity, and liberty.
Trilce was originally published in Peru, 1922, during a tumultuous time in Vallejo’s life as he dealt with the loss of his mother, loss of love (Otilia Villanueva Gonzales), existentialism, solitude, and patriarchal exclusion, all while incarcerated for being wrongfully charged with instigating a political uprising that resulted in destruction of property. Diving into the collection for a second time in my life, a turbulent one at that, allotted for a vivacious consumption of each and every piece. I credit a large part of this to Dimos and Rowes’ voices accompanying me in the journey to indulging Vallejo’s poetry rather than focusing on deciphering.
Like my explanation.
This lacerates me with earliness.
That way of walking on trapezes.
Those courageousish brutes as fakes.
That glue that sticks mercury to the inside.
Those buttocks sitting upwards.
That can’t be, been.
Poem “XIV,” demonstrates Rowe and Dimo’s dedication to maintaining the work’s resistance to established meaning or the rules in place to achieve meaning. Instead they preserve form, let the spatial intentionality ruminate in the reader’s mind and force pause. They engage with Vallejo’s syntactical experimentation and heighten its absurdity all to convey the sentiment of “the impossible already lived.” This could have referred to the aforementioned events in Vallejo’s life: the death of his mother, his time in jail, and the loss of Otilia. Three horrific events, one can imagine, but wishes to never experience. Ironic, since we are all bound to live in loss at some point in time. Understanding this as ‘the moment in one’s life already lived,’ helped me view my own grief in a forgiving light.
Alternatively the collection also provides a series of poems meditating on the concepts of power and freedom, in every aspect of life.
By a system of clockwork, the imminent
old man–Pythagorean!––plays
all along the aortas. And only
every late in the night, with night,
deflects somewhat his metal exception.
But, naturally,
always doing his duty.
In “L” Vallejo doesn’t speak to these concepts in a traditional manner but rather humanizes brutality by finding that which is transcendental and vital when speaking about individuals who’ve been marginalized, confined, and forgotten in indifference. Dimo and Rowe’s attentive language choices that adhere to the mythological underlying allusions, as well as the gruesome treatment of victims goes to show their commitment to Vallejo’s dadaist tendencies without imposing their own interpretations. A true act of admiration not only to the collection but each other as collaborators.
Lastly,“XXII” is a must read, and personally, I wanted to dedicate this piece to para mi madre: gracias, my body could never contain “a certain crumb” in your absence.